News from Maine’s Island and Coastal Communities volume 35, № 9
published by the island institute
When jobs don’t match workers
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november 2021 n free circulation: 50,000
workingwaterfront.com
A WALK ON THE BEACH—
Data suggests Maine has daunting challenges By Tom Groening
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midst a wave of bleak demographic news from Amanda Rector, the state economist, came a call to action. Speaking at the Workforce Pathways Conference hosted by the Island Institute (publisher of The Working Waterfront), Rector said workers here can find success by developing skills to match emerging employment sectors. “Job matching,” as she described it, is critical. That’s one strategy for offsetting the labor shortage that threatens to stall economic growth. But first, the bleak news. Maine’s population of 1,362,359 puts it at 42nd in the nation. Seven of the state’s 16 counties had their highest populations in the past, not in the 2020 census. There was good news for the eight coastal counties—only Washington County had a population peak in the past, in 1900. The state’s population growth from 2010 to 2020 of 2.6 percent also was 42nd in the nation, and yet another dubious distinction is Maine’s median age of 45, the oldest in the U.S. Not surprisingly, Maine has
A couple enjoys a walk on the beach at Hermit Island Campground in Phippsburg. Photographer Michele Stapleton toured the facility; see her other photos on pages 12-13.
the largest percentage of baby boomers—those born between 1946 and 1964—of any U.S. state. “We have the largest share of the population 65 and older,” Rector said, as Maine recently surpassed Florida in that ranking. The representation of baby boomers and millennials (born 1980 to 1995) varies by region.
In the southern coastal area, about 20 percent of residents are boomers and about 25 percent are millennials. In the Midcoast, it’s about 26 percent boomers and about 18 percent millennials. And Downeast, it’s 25 percent boomers and about 16 percent millennials. continued on page 5
Maine ports avoid shipping delays…for now Ancillary businesses hurt from reduced cruise ships By Craig Idlebrook
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ff the coast of Southern California, there is a sizable fleet of container ships with as many as half a million containers waiting to make port. Meanwhile, a major terminal at one of China’s most
important ports recently was shuttered for two weeks because of a single case of COVID-19 among the workforce there. The disruption in oceanic trade caused by COVID-19 and cascading logistical challenges may last for months or years, according to shipping analysts.
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And yet in Maine, there are no major the company has continued a trajectory bottlenecks or delays to report in the of steady growth despite the pandemic. state’s ports, according to officials. That’s The company is still facing the same partly because of the nature of what is challenges other shipping companies shipped to and from Maine, and partly face because of COVID-19—staff shortbecause one of the largest shipping part- ages, high demand, competition for ners in the state has so shipping containers, and far avoided many of the trucking issues—but it is major delays plaguing weathering the storm well Eimskip … other shipping lines. so far, he said. In fact, the Port of “All those things are an has continued Portland is on pace to issue, but they seem to be a trajectory of move more cargo than being managed pretty well before, according to at the moment,” he said. steady growth Matt Burns, interim Searsport Town Manager despite the executive director of the James Gillway says that pandemic. Maine Port Authority. traffic at the much smaller That’s been fueled Mack Point terminal also by the growing trade has been steady, without brought in by Eimskip, an Icelandic any real snarls that he has noticed. The transportation company that connects cargo there is mostly bulk products like the European Union, the Northeast road salt, scrap metal, and liquid fuels, United States, and South America. which are not as susceptible to many of Burns says Eimskip focuses on special- the logistical challenges that container ized shipping which hasn’t been affected ships have faced. by the major delays in larger ports, and continued on page 3
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The Working Waterfront . November 2021
On the record with…
Penobscot Bay pilot Dave Gelinas Guiding foreign tankers to port keeps fuel flowing By Tom Groening
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ithout Maine’s shipping ports, many home heating oil tanks would run dry this winter. Without trained pilots, who take the “con” of tankers as they make their way up Penobscot Bay, the cargo would not be delivered. And without their extensive training, that fuel could be at risk of spilling through a grounding or collision. Dave Gelinas, 59, has been working as a ship pilot in Penobscot Bay for almost 30 years. As president of Penobscot Bay & River Pilots Association, based in Searsport, he works with three other pilots to safely bring the vessels to dock at Mack Point, and in Bucksport. Maine has a compulsory state pilotage rule for all foreign vessels with over 9-feet in draft, so a pilot is directing the navigation of such vessels anytime they are underway in Penobscot Bay. Gelinas answered our questions about the work earlier this year. The interview has been edited for clarity and length.
THE WORKING WATERFRONT: What are the primary cargoes that come up the bay these days, and have they changed since you’ve been doing this work? GELINAS: Our primary cargoes are still petroleumbased—gasoline, diesel fuel, home heating oil, asphalt, kerosene, #6 oil, and jet fuel. As paper mills closed over the last 25 years and with the arrival of the Maritimes and Northeast natural gas pipeline, we have seen a drastic decrease in the amount of #6 oil imported. Similarly, we used to bring in several barges of coal per year; that commodity disappeared from the mix over 15 years ago. Heating oil also seems to be on a decline, as consumers switch to heat pumps, propane, or natural gas as available. In addition to the petroleum products, we’re still seeing commodities such as petcoke, gypsum, iron oxide, caustic soda, and road salt. Some of the newer cargoes that have come in the last ten to 15 years include kaolin clay slurry from Brazil, and wind turbine components. The port operator in Searsport has a very good reputation for handling high-value wind power components. Recently, we began receiving shipments of wood pulp from Northern Europe. Several years ago the Port of Searsport began exporting scrap steel. Export cargoes that we have lost include newsprint and directory paper, and import cargoes like tapioca and lumber. We also used to bring refrigerated cargoes up to Winterport, which almost entirely consisted of frozen fish. Sadly, that terminal has ceased operations. WW: Is it primarily Mack Point that receives ships, or is there still some cargo bound for Bucksport and Bangor? GELINAS: Mack Point receives the vast majority of cargo bound in or out of Penobscot Bay. There are two docks there—the liquid dock (oil, caustic soda & china clay slurry) and the dry bulk cargo dock. But there is a very active and well-maintained oil dock in Bucksport, operated by Penobscot Bay Terminals. Virtually all petroleum bound for Bangor and Brewer ceased many years ago. The only commercial traffic we pilot up and down the river now are the commercial tugs and barges bound to and from the Cianbro Eastern Manufacturing Facility in Brewer. WW: Do you see any threats to shipping as the culture of the bay communities change? GELINAS: There is no doubt that as the coast becomes more developed and economically
Gelinas prepares to board a ship as both the pilot vessel and ship are moving. PHOTO: COURTESY PENOBSCOT BAY & RIVER PILOTS ASSOCIATION
stratified, the commercial maritime sector has come under greater scrutiny. It is difficult to imagine any proposed port development not being challenged by one special interest group or another. WW: Why do feel confident that shipping is safe for the bay’s natural environment?
GELINAS: As you might guess, the initial dialogue is very professional in nature. After assessing whether or not there are any immediate concerns from local traffic, the pilot will learn from the captain what the heading, engine order, and deepest draft of the vessel are. Then, the pilot and captain will conduct a comprehensive briefing regarding the maneuvering characteristics of the vessel and any peculiarities or gyro error that the ship may have, as well as a discussion about the anticipated local weather, tides, currents, intended route, local traffic, assist tug capabilities and use, and dock configuration and tie-up details. As our voyage tends to be several hours in duration, there is an opportunity to converse with the crew. Almost without exception the crews tend to be friendly and happy to be visiting a U.S. port. There are always questions about local shopping opportunities. Typically, they inquire about the location of the nearest Best Buy. A surprising number of them know about Stephen King and ask where he lives in Maine.
GELINAS: In the nearly three decades I have worked as a pilot, I have seen tremendous advances in shipping safety. Thirty years ago, “double-hulls” for oil tankers were little more than a concept; now, every single oil vessel has a double hull. Navigation equipment such as electronic chart plotters and radars have improved significantly. Automated information system “blackboxes” are now required on all commercial vessels. Our pilots carry portable navigation units aboard every ship we pilot. Our profession has changed considerably, with the development of bridge resource management, fatigue mitigation, and the requirement for ongoing continuing educaWhen we train an tion in order to maintain state licensing. Additionally, the Coast apprentice pilot, we don’t WW: I’m sure you’ve had some Guard practices robust enforcescary moments jumping from emphasize dependence ment of international safety stanthe boat that delivers you to the dards which include equipment on electronic navigation. ship, especially in the middle of condition, crew competence, and the night in winter. Both vessels A good pilot is always oversight of proper shore-side are moving, right? Do you ever garbage disposal. get used to it? looking out the window. We’re fortunate to have Penobscot Bay Tractor Tug GELINAS: In most instances, Company, operated by brothers getting to work is the most Doug and Patrick Fournier in hazardous part of our job. Our Belfast, to assist us in Searsport and Bucksport. Their pilot boats run us offshore to an arriving ship, which equipment is light years ahead of what we had to will have a rope ladder slung over the side at a height work with 25 years ago. of about 5-feet above the water. Once the ship is With Searsport’s proximity to Europe and its ice- slowed down to eight knots, our pilot boat will then free harbor, I think the port is well positioned for match speed and land alongside, allowing the pilot to growth. Ocean shipping has the least environmental step onto the ladder and climb up the side of the ship. impact of all modes of cargo transportation, followed The height of the ladder can sometimes be as much by rail. In Searsport, both of these modes are present as 20-plus feet. This is a challenging part of the job, at Mack Point. and while you may get used to it with time and experience, you never get complacent about the dangers. WW: What’s it like walking onto the bridge of a In 2019 and 2020, two pilots were killed in the New foreign-flagged and foreign-crewed ship? Are these York-New Jersey area in falls from pilot ladders in folks friendly? Do you ever get to chat with them? two separate boarding incidents.
. April 2020 . November www.workingwaterfront.com www.workingwaterfront.com 2021
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MAINE PORTS
continued from page 1 “I have seen a few vessels anchored, but it wasn’t, I don’t believe, pandemic-related,” Gillway said. “It’s more or less business as usual.” The smaller size of Maine’s ports may also be an advantage in avoiding some of the logistical issues that are slowing down shipping in the larger ports around the world, Burns said. The problem is that once things get tangled up in one of the larger ports, it is difficult to get things untangled. “You just have such a high volume of freight that is coming into the terminal that they have to run like clockwork,” he said. “Any facet that slows down will cause delays. That’s a big part of what you’re seeing, and I just don’t think we deal with it on the same level in Portland.” But that doesn’t mean Maine’s ports are immune Dave Gelinas aboard a ship in Penobscot Bay. PHOTO: COURTESY PENOBSCOT BAY & RIVER PILOTS ASSOCIATION from disruption, Burns said. For example, businesses that provide logistical support to large ships be steering due north and have Ducktrap Mountain coming into Portland and Penobscot Bay have lost WW: Is it possible to lose all the electronic in Lincolnville directly ahead of you. That may more than half their revenue because of the lack of navigational aids? sound simple, and it is, for good reason. Sometimes cruise ships coming to call during the pandemic. These businesses, from pilot ships to water delivery, GELINAS: Commercial ships today are “paperless,” the best systems are the simplest ones. were already navigating diminished oil tanker traffic meaning they no longer have paper charts aboard. before the pandemic, Burns said. So far, they largely However, they must have two fully redundant WW: What’s enjoyable about the work? have found ways to continue working, but further electronic navigatonal units. To completely lose all disruption could prove a challenge. If too many of forms of electronic navigation would require a major GELINAS: It is a very challenging job, but with these support businesses close, that could ultimately electrical malfunction, and in such an instance a ship that comes a sense of satisfaction when you do a hamper shipping traffic, Burns warned. job well. Penobscot Bay is one of the most visually would likely not even be allowed into port. “If we start losing pilots, or things like that, we But the core of the piloting profession is based on stunning bodies of water in the country, and every could see delays in the ports, and that could be a real local knowledge and observation. When we train an day at work brings a new observation. While lots of problem,” he said. apprentice pilot, we don’t emphasize dependence on recreational boaters get to see it in the summer and And of course, as with everything that has electronic navigation. A good pilot is always looking fall, few people get to experience it year-round. happened during the pandemic, there is an underIt is stunning to see the Camden Hills blanketed out the window. standing that the full scope of the logistical chala foot snow after a passing nor’easter. Our headings positions are inScale: CHASLE21.PLT 2/10/2021 and 2:43:50 course-change PM 1:12.83of H: fresh 36.252 L: 96.247 in lenges may not yet be evident. If there is one lesson largely based on local landmarks. After years of Breaking ice on the Penobscot River is an experience from the pandemic, it’s that what happens halfway training, a pilot develops a keen awareness of a visual that is almost other-worldly. There is so much to see. John IMartin, Staples, andtop-shelf, Elsie Gillespie chat around woodstove annual townlocally meeting. around thethe world can haveatathe major impact in And the people get to Bud work with are picture that looks “right” when transiting up and ways planners can never anticipate. That’s a lesson down the bay. Even when everything is working 100 from my partners to our pilot boat crews, the dock Burns knows well at this point. percent, you want to make sure that what is shown workers, agents, and tugboat crews. They are all “Everything is connected, and we have a global Finally, meeting mariners from on the electronic chart matches that mental picture professionals. supply chain, and one ripple will really affect everyaround the globe is a special experience. As my of what looks right. thing, especially in the big ports,” he said. “It could One example is when transiting northbound in mentor Capt. Bill Abbot used to say, “It’s the best job just be we haven’t realized the effect yet, that it hasn’t Penobscot Bay on the longest leg of the “recommended you could ever have—you get to meet people from really caught up to us.” route.” If you are in the middle of the route, you should all over the world and you never leave home.”
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The Working Waterfront . November 2021
Boatbuilder develops work strategies while navigating ALS Kathy Walsh wonders about links between toxins and disease By Laurie Schreiber
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idcoast boatbuilder Kathy Walsh, who was diagnosed with a motor neuron disease called amyotrophic lateral sclerosis last spring, has developed strategies to continue working despite increasing weakness in her upper body. Walsh also wonders if toxins found in work-related materials could be the cause of, or a contributor to the disease. ALS, commonly called Lou Gehrig’s disease, is a fatal neurodegenerative disease affecting the motor nerves and voluntary muscles, according to the ALS Association. Symptoms include the spread of muscle weakness and paralysis through the body. People progressively lose the ability to move, talk, and even breathe and eat, although their minds remain sharp. There are two types of ALS. “Sporadic” can affect anyone, anywhere and accounts for 90 to 95 percent of all cases. “Familial” means the disease is inherited. A Mount Desert Island native, Walsh’s career started as a research assistant in animal reproduction labs in Colorado and California, followed by a 13-year stint at Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor. She had also done side jobs on boats, mentored by her grandfather. Seventeen years ago, an opportunity came up to work for Carlton Johnson, founder of Redfern Boats, then located in Lamoine and now in Tremont. It meant a better salary than her lab gigs, so she went for it. “It was just the two of us,” she said. “There have been a lot of projects along the way.” About three years ago, Walsh began to experience weakness in her hands. “They wouldn’t do what I wanted them to,” she said. She saw a neurologist but was misdiagnosed for a Kathy Walsh at work on her boat. PHOTO: COURTESY KATHY WALSH long time. A genetic test determined her ALS is not familial. So MRIs indicated inflammation in her brain and toxicology tests indicated the inflammation was due she’s been researching work-related toxins as possible to toxic exposure. She followed her doctor’s advice to triggers. Although studies are inconclusive, she wonders if long-term exposure to off-gassing related to pestistart wearing a respirator during work. But the weakness continued to spread and eventu- cides found in imported teak or formaldehyde used in the manufacture of composite wood ally she was diagnosed with ALS. products might have triggered or Today she has trouble speaking contributed to her disease. Her work and swallowing. Her lower body She followed her typically involves working with teak remains strong and she can walk. But her upper body is weakening doctor’s advice to start and wood and fiberglass composites. A scientist at Jackson Laboratory said and she has a fair amount of muscle wearing a respirator the causes of ALS are still unknown. atrophy. She lost 30 pounds in “ALS is a remarkably mysterecent months and her breathing is during work. rious disease,” said Rob Burgess, at only at 60 percent respiration. who researches the genetics “It feels like it’s advancing fairly underlying neuromuscular and quickly,” she said. neurodevelopmental disorders. But she continues to work. That ALS is more common than most people think— includes a lot of buffing, cleaning, varnishing, and and it’s more than one disease, he explained. painting “We talk about ALS as this monolith, but it’s not,” “I have issues with grip strength, so I have made some Velcro straps to hold sandpaper in my hands he said. “One of the challenges is that we don’t know and used foam piping around my brushes and if it’s ten different diseases, or 100 or a thousand different diseases.” scrapers to help me grip them better,” she said.
That makes it all the more difficult to determine possible environmental triggers. “I’m sympathetic to people who want a cause or an explanation,” he said. “Everyone does, for any disease. It’s important to try to get that because if there is something causative out there, you want to minimize exposure. But it’s really challenging to do those kind of studies, especially for a disease where it’s hard to get tens or thousands of ALS patients together to do a large-scale epidemiological study.” According to the ALS Association, there are currently four drugs approved by the U.S. FDA to treat ALS. Studies around the world are ongoing to develop more treatments and a cure. Acknowledging the challenge of understanding and treating ALS, Walsh remains convinced on a personal level that better protection from offgassing might have been key to the protection of her own health. “I have three grandchildren and three more on the way,” she said. “I want to be around for them. I’m doing everything I can to fight this and to raise awareness.”
COA purchases downtown housing College wants to secure student rooms
COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC in Bar Harbor has purchased two residential complexes in the downtown area, securing housing for nearly 40 students. The nine properties, with a total of 31 bedrooms, have been rented to COA students for the academic year for many years, so they don’t increase the amount of housing available to students, said COA President Darron Collins, but do secure what’s there into the future. “With the increasing housing crunch in Bar Harbor and the difficulty our students face trying to find rentals, this was an opportunity we felt we could not pass up,” Collins said. The purchase price totals close to $4.5 million.
While students have traditionally rented at both sets of properties, they have often had to wait until mid-September to move in, because the properties have been rented short term during the summer season. With college ownership, students renting these properties can move in before the school year opens and stay through the end. The housing purchases come amid a bigger push at the college to expand student housing. The college purchased six nearly-adjacent condo units on Eden Street in 2019, and this year broke ground on the COA Mount Desert Center in Northeast Harbor. The Main Street building will have year-round apartments for up to 15 students and a place for a faculty member and their family, along with storefront commercial space.
www.workingwaterfront.com . November 2021
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ECONOMIST
continued from page 1 The state also has a mostly white population, with just 9.8 percent non-whites. Both the diversity and age numbers threaten economic vitality, experts say, because younger people and non-whites are more likely to start businesses or work their way up through the ranks at a business or nonprofit, and younger people and non-whites have more children, thereby boosting school populations. Rector said the southern coastal part of Maine has about 12 percent non-white residents, the Midcoast is about 8 percent non-white, and the Downeast coastal region is about 9 percent non-white. The county break“We need to down of median age also attract more tells a story. Lincoln and Piscataquis counties have workers to a median age of over 50, the state.” while Androscoggin, Cumberland, Kennebec, and Penobscot counties have a median age below 50, probably a reflection of the colleges in those counties, Rector said. The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on Maine’s demographic challenges are somewhat unclear, she said, but offered one recent statistic—homes purchased here by out-of-staters have grown from about a quarter of sales in late 2020 to a third of sales more recently. “We don’t necessarily know if these are people moving here with their families,” she said, or purchasing a second home or a rental property. Either way, the red-hot real estate market “is problematic from a workforce housing perspective.” Washington County was the only coastal region that didn’t see a double-digit percentage jump in purchase prices. All the data presented impacts Maine’s workforce. The state’s total civilian workforce grew steeply from
1967 to 1989, then dipped in the early 1990s with deep recession of those years. But the labor force also dipped in 2014 and 2019. Rector displayed graphs depicting its numbers from 1990 to 2020: • Th e southern coastal region went from about 240,000 to about 280,000 • Th e Midcoast region went from 50,000 to about 55,000 • Th e Downeast region stayed fairly steady at about 47,000 “We need to attract more workers to the state,” she said. The state’s unemployment rate is listed at 9.1 percent, but Rector believes it is actually higher than
official accounting concludes. Sagadahoc County had the lowest rate on the coast at 3.8 percent, Washington County the highest, at 6.2 percent. Even though a shrinking or static workforce may increase opportunity for employees, job growth will come in some sectors and not others. This is where “job matching” as a strategy comes in play. “You’re constantly going to have to be up-skilling, re-skilling,” she said. And latching onto one employer, or even one job, is no longer the norm. The kind of work one does over the decades will likely change significantly. Growth areas include: retail trade, transportation, healthcare, utilities, and social service. Topping the list of occupations with the largest projected growth are: personal care aide, food prep/service, registered nurse, medical assistant, and software developer.
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The Working Waterfront . November 2021
Book Reviews
A tasty how-to: Maine’s homegrown food Cookbook offers guide to local fare e Maine Farm Table Th Cookbook:125 Homegrown Recipes from the Pine Tree State y Kate Shaffer (Countryman Press, B 2021)
Review by Tina Cohen
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he Maine Farm Table Cookbook, part of its publisher’s “Farm Table” series, is authored by Kate Shaffer, who comes credentialed with some Downeast culinary experience and, notably, founder of Black Dinah’s Chocolatiers. Originally on Isle au Haut (where the mountain of that name is located), the confection operation has moved to Westbrook, now renamed Ragged Coast Chocolates. Her book, beautifully illustrated with lush photographs, offers an enthusiastic introduction to many of the hardworking folks who provide the ingredients in Maine that make seasonal cooking here so rewarding. The book is organized by way of the various food sources: “From the Mill,” “From the Field,” “From the Pasture,”
“From the Sea,” “From the Forest and Directory produced by the University of the Hive,” “From the Creamery,” “From Maine’s Extension Service. This excelthe Bog, Bramble, and Barren,” “From lent, comprehensive list and map will the Orchard,” and “From the Brewery, help you locate the farms, orchards, Vineyard, and Cask.” docks, etc. you want to At the back of the book, visit. some seasonal meals Happily for any who are suggested with lists deem themselves just pulling together dishes middling in the kitchen, This collection from the various categothis collection of recipes of recipes is very is very accessible, with ries. March, for example, has an apropos “Cabin nothing ultra-compliaccessible, with Fever Reliever Cocktail cated in technique and nothing ultraParty” featuring a “Rum nothing too exotic—that complicated in Rusticator” with maple is, if you’re in Maine in syrup. the right season—for technique and That road trips could ingredients. Some famed nothing too come from all these restaurants are represuggestions, with a list of sented, among them, exotic. what you should see and the Lost Kitchen in taste and buy and bring Freedom, El El Frijoles home, seems a natural in Sargentville, Nīna expectation. Sadly, the June in Rockport; and book lacks a map or itineraries to bakeries Two Fat Cats in Portland and create those trips. Tinder Hearth in Brooksville. Help with that, I’ve discovered, can But the point of including that level come from another source. Online, visit of success is empowerment, not intimthe Maine Farm and Seafoods Products idation. You, too, can wow dinner
guests with the “classic crab cakes,” made from the book’s shamefully easy but powerfully delicious recipe. Finish a meal with lemon zucchini whoopie pies with blueberry filling and bask in satiation. I’m feeling like if I could have only one cookbook in my Vinalhaven kitchen, it might be this one. With the peak of harvest upon us, I’m surveying my island garden now and looking ahead, working on my to-try list for next year. So far, it’s elderberry bushes and some apple varieties specific for cider, and sweet potatoes in a variety able to mature in a Maine summer. And what I don’t grow, I feel newly inspired I can find, not too far away. Tina Cohen gardens, forages, and cooks on Vinalhaven.
The Midcoast’s master of realistic sci-fi Stories and novellas evoke supernatural, apocalyptic life The Best of Elizabeth Hand By Elizabeth Hand, edited by Bill Sheehan (2021)
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eath, darkness, dismay, and the supernatural are hallmark characteristics of Elizabeth Hand’s highly literary weird fiction, and The Best of Elizabeth Hand collects a dozen exemplary stories from across her long career. The book contains a number of her award-winners, among them her widely admired novellas Illyria, which Hand in her author’s note calls “my version of (Shakespeare’s) Twelfth Night,” and The Maiden Flight of McCauley’s Bellerophon, about the possibility of a pre-Wright brothers flight. More than a third of the stories in the selection are set in Maine, and among them, “Last Summer at Mars Hill” helped put Hand on the fantasy and science fiction map in the 1990s. The fictional town of Mars Hill is on the Midcoast in the vicinity of Hand’s actual residence in Lincolnville. (She admits in an author’s note that at the time she wrote the story, she did not know there was an actual town of Mars Hill in Aroostook County.) The central character is a young woman, Moony, who’s a summer resident of the coastal spiritualist community, along with her aging-hippie mother Ariel, a “stoned 43-year-old woman with breast cancer and a few weeks left to live,” as Moony thinks at one point.
Ariel refuses conventional treatment deck of Tarot cards in a junk shop. All for her illness, and Moony’s frustra- the cards are blank except one. Ivy takes tion with this provides the emotional the weirdly named “Least Trumps” deck vortex of the story. Meanwhile, there is back to Aranbega Island and proceeds among the spiritualists a legend about to tattoo the image from the one card a mysterious apparition they call “the onto her own leg. A personage from Light Children,” akin to Victorian her past then shows up randomly at the fairies but with more facets, including island, and we are launched into a sort of phantasmagoric recounting of Ivy’s a healing potency. Moony is inclined not to believe it. life and past lesbian relationship. It’s a haunting, realistic story with Her boyfriend Jason, though, accepts the common belief that the Light superbly detailed passages describing Children were the original attraction tattooing and the deep-felt sense of autumn in the Midcoast. of the spiritualist settlers Also haunting are two to the place. imaginations of what The story’s setting, characters, plot, and When Ivy goes to Maine might be like at the end of civilization— intersections with Rockland to visit a recurring theme in the supernatural are her mother, she Hand’s dark vision. In distinctly realistic, maybe “Echo,” a writer-scholar a late 20th century, on a whim buys lives on a Maine island, slightly punkish update an odd deck of alone except for her dog on the late 19th century and a long epistolary stories of Arthur Machen. Tarot cards… relationship with a man That realistic feel— whom she contacts less interweaving the superand less because radio natural believably into life as we know it—is Hand’s funda- signals from the mainland are more and more sporadic in the lingering mental literary accomplishment. In “The Least Trumps,” Ivy, a tattoo aftermath of some unspecified catasartist, lives in a house on an island in trophe. “Who would ever have thought a pond on an island in Penobscot Bay it could be all gone, just like that?” “The Owl Count” shapes the same that her flamboyant writer mother, now elderly, fitted out for her little decaying-civilization sensibility. Two friends living in the North Woods in the family years before. When Ivy goes to Rockland to visit climate-change-battered future mainher mother, she on a whim buys an odd tain a years-old routine of making the
annual owl count in the forest. The environmental-group sponsor of the count has long since disappeared amid social, economic, environmental, and infrastructural crumble. But the characters’ insistence on maintaining their lifeways, together with slick descriptions of the woods, evokes feelings of remoteness and near-lostness that seem all too accurate to what may actually be looming for us. Not to put too fine a point on it, but “The Owl Count” turns out to be a horror story. Finally, the four-page murder mystery “Ghost Light” sounds for all the world like revenge inside the Camden Opera House. The Best of Elizabeth Hand provides a nice look at her appeal to the literary wings of the SF and fantasy worlds in the last four decades, with her Maine connections vividly evoked. Dana Wilde is a member of the National Book Critics Circle.
www.workingwaterfront.com . November 2021
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Book Reviews
Whiteness and Maine’s ‘distinct alien race’ Bias against French-Canadians ran deep Distinct Alien Race: A The Untold Story of Franco-Americans By David Vermette (2018)
Review by Andy O’Brien
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rowing up in the Midcoast, the only thing I knew about FrenchCanadians was what I learned from my dad. He said the stereotype was of the “dumb Frenchman” who usually took shop classes in high school and went directly to work in the mills after graduation. The other kids in Augusta called them “frogs.” What struck me most about these stories is that my dad described them like they were another race of people. He told tales of going up to Quebec City after high school to party with his friends in the late 1950s and how “those FrenchCanadian girls really went wild for us white guys,” like he was talking about military adventures in Asia on R&R. When Paul LePage was first elected governor, my father remarked: “Finally they elected one of their own and he goes on to prove every single ugly stereotype about them.” I told these stories to some FrancoAmerican colleagues in the Maine Legislature with some amusement because it seemed so ridiculous that a white person could be racist against other white people. But my friends reacted with visible anger. They weren’t
that much younger than my father’s generation and had personally experienced this kind of abuse growing up. In his 2018 book A Distinct Alien Race: The Untold Story of Franco-Americans, David Vermette tells the story of the 19th century New England textile barons who created what became the modern corporation, building their fortunes on the backs of a French-Canadian working class. Described by one Massachusetts labor official as “the Chinese of the eastern states,” the mere presence of French-Canadian immigrants fueled anti-Catholic conspiracies that claimed they were part of a papist plot to establish a Catholic theocracy in the region. They suffered sectarian violence at the hands of Protestant zealots in the 19th century and were targets of the Maine Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s. Academics promoted since-discredited eugenics theories that French-Canadians were biologically inferior to the dominant Anglo-Saxon Protestant race. But to the wealthy factory owners in Boston, the new arrivals were a very profitable resource. Vermette describes the first New England mills as a “utopian industrial experiment” aimed at creating an alternative to the deplorable conditions in the factories of England. Even Charles Dickens was impressed with the treatment of young Yankee female operatives in Lowell, Massachusetts in the 1840s.
“They were healthy in appearance, many of them remarkably so, and had the manners and deportment of young women: not of degraded brutes of burden,” he wrote. But there was nothing utopian about toiling in a noisy textile mill from dawn until dusk for low pay and soon the young Yankee women were striking for better pay and working conditions. By the Gilded Age, mill owners found that a poverty-stricken immigrant workforce was much easier to control. Companies began warehousing the new workers in cramped rooms in shoddily built tenements. Plagues of dysentery and typhoid from water contaminated with sewage and toxic chemicals claimed the lives of numerous young French children—their graves still dotting the cemeteries in mill towns across Maine. Managers cared little about workplace safety and countless limbs were lost in accidents due to their neglect. The public would consider these conditions to be unacceptable for good Anglo Protestant Yankee women, but since it was only papist French peasants, the mill owners no longer needed to recognize the humanity of their workers. As one manager said, “I regard my work people just as I regard my machinery. So long as they can do my work for what I choose to pay them, I keep them, getting out of them all I can.”
Eventually conditions improved as workers unionized, but factories were outsourced, first to the South and then overseas where workers of color could be more easily exploited. Later generations of French-Canadians assimilated and became simply “white” in the eyes of American society. Darker skin pigmentation continues to be what identifies people who belong to a lower caste. Sadly, these days many Franco-Americans show the same kind of contempt toward African immigrants that the Yankees had for their ancestors. As history shows, American society will accept the brutal exploitation of other humans for profit if we view them as inferior. Unfortunately, racism continues to be the biggest barrier to enacting policies that uplift the working poor. Andy O’Brien is a freelance writer, labor activist, and former managing editor of The Free Press.
More Maine tales from here, everywhere Second volume of stories reflect COVID, magic North by Northeast 2: New Short Fiction by Maine Writers Edited by Agnes Bushell (2021)
Review by Dana Wilde
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ost of the 16 stories collected in North by Northeast 2: New Short Fiction by Maine Writers are set in Maine, and most of them approach their subject matter fairly realistically. Some, though, go outside the boundaries of conventional realism. Several stories by contributors to North by Northeast 1 (published in 2019) give us familiar, down-to-earth characters, settings, and scenic narratives. Jodi Paloni’s “An End to It” discloses the late developments in the family history of her couple Vera and Axel, from volume 1. Joshua Bodwell’s Gooch, owner of the Gray Gull bar that was the center of turmoil in Bodwell’s volume 1 story, bumbles into trouble with health inspectors in “We Are the Tide.” And Robert Diamante stretches his insightful Portland realism into oddly plausible surreality in “Never Buy a Used Cat,” in which a homeless man living secretly in a basement becomes a nerve-wracking oracle for a slightly neurotic gay apartment dweller.
A less conventionally realistic narrative—yet vibrantly real—is Annie Seikonia’s “Love in the Time of COVID19.” In a kind of dialogue of journallike entries, “Beast” and “Belle” depict the disruption of their developing love affair amid the pandemic shutdown of 2020. They decide to move from the city to upstate Maine to escape, but can’t escape themselves. Less conventional still is Linda Buckmaster’s “Short Shorts,” an assemblage of nine one-to-two-page narratives, each told by a different woman. They range in setting from Detroit, Maine, to South Boston, North Carolina, and Texas, and recount painful, twisted, distressing, and quirky events from each woman’s past. The author’s short preface to the stories, which in a way abbreviates her own story of crossing America in her baby-boomer youth, seems to imply that the narrators and their stories are based in real life. Anyway, this is to me one of the most affecting pieces in the collection. Also striking, in part probably because of my personal familiarity with Istanbul, is “The Anatolian Girl” by Anne Elliott. Few stories in my reading experience capture so evocatively the sense of nervous fascination that many Americans carry into other countries.
The narrator and her husband buy a rug in a Turkish carpet shop, and then randomly meet a café waitress whose story mirrors the story the carpet seller claimed is woven into the rug. Just after the purchase, the narrator nervously overthinks her connection to the rug: “Maybe I need an amulet, a code word to lay at my door. I will work it up in my hands. Read this. This is the truth I will not say. This is what I am thinking.” A whole psychic, not to mention aesthetic reality is evoked here. The most skillfully written story in the collection is Rita Doucette’s “Why We Burn Our Fields.” The literary genre “magical realism” is difficult to master convincingly—meaning the magic and the realism in the story seem seamless—but this story’s surreal picture of what it’s like to live through rural Maine winter succeeds. The narrator is an observant, ironically engaged woman living somewhere in the Maine woods amid neighbors of her own middle social class and perspicacity. She’s preoccupied with enduring “the plague,” which seems to be a magical version of the dreamlike, emotionally tangled psychic claustrophobia educed by Maine winter. It consists of knotty sexual
tensions (wryly figured in the wives’ competition to “move the room” of men), deception (the women practice different kinds of smiles to hypnotize the men), death (both fantasy and concrete, not always distinguishable), and all kinds of semi-real and semiunreal experiences, such as black snow and indifference to burning homes. The plague is incompletely cleansed each early spring when everyone turns out to burn their fields. Overall the stories in North by Northeast 2 reveal somewhat less about the peculiarities of our north-by-northeast perspective than did those of its predecessor volume. But the diversity of voices is a welcome addition to the grapples with reality we’re having here in 2021. Dana Wilde is a member of the National Book Critics Circle.
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The Working Waterfront . November 2021
Rock Bound
‘Citizen’ Hearst and the state of the news Where evolving media will land isn’t clear…yet By Tom Groening TAKE A JOURNEY with me, back to the year 1247. We’re in a walled city in what today is Belgium, and like many towns, it employs a town crier. Let’s call him Tom. Tom the Town Crier patrols the streets each night, calling out time and status at hourly intervals: “Eleven o’clock, and all is well! Midnight, and all is well!” Like the sounds of the refrigerator and in your home today, the folks in town don’t awaken at his reports. But then: “A quarter after two, and Mrs. Brown has been stabbed in her bed, and Mr. Brown is running for the city gate!” Tom, we now understand, was an early journalist. Notice that he didn’t accuse Mr. Brown or speculate on why Mrs. Brown was murdered. Just the facts. And of course, the next morning, townspeople gathered at the village common and complained that Tom never reported the good news. As a journalist—who no longer covers murder and mayhem—I spend a lot of time thinking about the profession. It’s evolved a lot since Tom’s days, and yet much remains the same. I was fascinated by the recent PBS American Experience examining newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst, “Citizen Hearst,”
the title a reference to the famous 1941 film that was a thinly veiled portrait of the man. Hearst was the son of a man who struck it big in gold, silver, and copper mining. His father was largely absent from his life, and his mother coddled and indulged him. After being kicked out of Harvard, W.R., as his employees later called him, took over a failing newspaper in San Francisco and built it into a dominant, in-demand media outlet, as we would call it today. Eventually, Hearst owned dozens of dailies, and famously fanned public anger for an invasion of Cuba, using agenda-driven reporting and outright falsehoods. Though he grew circulation through such stunts as having his reporters work to solve crimes, he also made newspapers accessible to the masses through photos, lively graphics, and storytelling that hit readers in the heart as much as the head. I think you can draw a direct line from Hearst to the Drudge Report and Fox News—the former trading in rumors, the latter in a political agenda—yet also to investigative reporting like that of Bob Woodward. Hearst successfully exposed the abuses of monopolies, even taking the “trusts,” as they were labeled, to court.
What lessons do Hearst’s story offer us today? I think, just like the monopolies that provided coal and ice to inner-city immigrants in the 1890s, media must not be allowed to be monolithic. Media ownership rules that once banned single ownership of a daily newspaper, TV and radio stations in the same city or market no longer guard against abuse. Many will remember when a chain of radio stations stopped playing records by the Dixie Chicks (now called the Chicks) because one member criticized President George W. Bush from the stage. That was a consolidated media wielding political power. In Maine, a majority of newspaper readers—in print and online—get their news from reporters who work for Reade Brower. Brower, in the last ten years, has become the owner of the Portland Press Herald, Kennebec Journal, Central Maine Morning Sentinel, the Lewiston Sun Journal, the Forecaster papers, The Ellsworth American, Mount Desert Islander, Courier-Gazette, The Free Press, Republican Journal, and others. He also owns two printing presses (and he prints our newspaper). Brower is a thoughtful and interesting man, and unlike Hearst, never set out to be a media mogul. He doesn’t use those papers to further a political
agenda. But what happens to this empire when he retires? Curtailing media consolidation as newspapers struggle to remain profitable is a tough sell. A better front on which to work is the consumer side. People need to be savvy about what they read and watch and use critical thinking to judge the quality of journalism. Much of Hearst’s early success came in making newspaper readers of immigrants who were just learning English and understanding how our government works. Is there a business opportunity in providing people with more analysis of the news? Maybe gathering snippets of coverage of a single event from five or six media sources, so the audience can get a broader understanding? The accelerating change we see in media will continue, probably until those of us who came of age before the internet are gone. I hope those who follow know how much our communities need good town criers. Tom Groening is editor of The Working Waterfront. He can be reached at: tgroening@islandinstitute.org.
Reflections
Much to gain by embracing the unknown New Island Fellow is also embraced by Machias community Reflections is written by Island Fellows, recent college grads who do community service work on Maine islands and in coastal communities through the Island Institute, publisher of The Working Waterfront.
By Kawai Marin IN LIFE, there are moments in which we are called to make a choice, where we are granted an opportunity to leave behind the boundaries of what was once familiar and safe to pursue something that might not yet be tangible, concrete. This illusive something lies beyond what is comfortable, and if we muster enough courage to venture just a little further, we will see that shrouded in the unknown is a tremendous gift— the opportunity for growth. This past month in Machias has afforded me just that—growth, upon growth, upon more growth. Now I’m not saying this growth thing is easy, or beautiful, or fun, but it sure is rewarding and in so many ways.
Which brings me to a small kernel of To me, the unknown wasn’t in the physical changes of the move from truth I’d like to share: Rather than fear Boston to Machias, but rather in the that which you do not know, embrace it and make it your own. sense that I was moving After all, isn’t that what towards a completely new community building is chapter in life—post-grad all about? Embracing our life, living on my own, differences and learning working at a new place, Machias sure from perspectives that and meeting new people. is different differ from ours? “Scary,” I thought. Or, Machias sure is different maybe not? from my home from my home in Boston, For though I did in Boston, and and even more so from meet new people, the my home in Brazil. Yet, great majority were even more so its perceived Bold Coast incredibly kind and from my home ruggedness is accentuated welcoming, and though in Brazil. by a communal warmth my work as an Island that rings true, from the Fellow currently feels simple hello of a stranger unfamiliar, I know that passing you on one of the slowly and surely it will many trails surrounding foster a positive impact the area, to the hour-long conversain the community. As for living on my own, it was tion with one of the vendors at the daunting at first, but with the passing farmers market. I’m coming to see that the unique of weeks I came to embrace that once unknown space for what it sense of community I found thus could be: room for introspection and far in Machias is something that would not have happened if not for a contemplation.
willingness to dive into the experience of the unknown. Machias’ quaint winding streets and long wooded trails hold a different surprise around every corner; the slow flowing tidal rivers, ospreys, and spruce forests are now becoming slightly more familiar, and the roadside apple trees bearing deep red fruit are now a welcome sight on my drives home from work. Though there is still so much I don’t know, I now find comfort in the things I seek to learn. Kawai Marin works with the Sunrise County Economic Council focusing on marketing, outreach, and communications. Originally from Brazil, he spent most of his life in Massachusetts. He earned a bachelor’s degree at Bates College studying environmental studies and anthropology.
www.workingwaterfront.com . November 2021
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CHILDREN AT WORK— Photographer Lewis Wickes Hine (1874-1940) documented three children who worked at the Seacoast Canning Co., Factory #4, in Eastport in this image. Information from the Library of Congress accompanying the photo notes: “They work at night when the rush is on. Youngest is Rob Collins, 10 years old; next is Dan Collins, 11 years; next is Milton Shannon. All live on South Clark Street.”
Op-Ed
The other side of Land for Maine’s Future ‘Hidden’ provision retains right to trap on land By Don Loprieno THIS SUMMER, $40 million was added to the state budget for the Land for Maine’s Future program, normally funded by a bond submitted to voters. No reason was given by the legislature for this change, but recent history may have been a guide. In 2019, a similar LMF bond was considered by the legislature’s appropriations committee. Legislators carried it over and mixed it in with other legislation and by November of 2020 declared it legislatively dead. One action they would not take is reject the bill based on the overwhelming opposition of those who testified, mostly private citizens who volunteered their time and effort to express their views, actions one would think would merit consideration in a democracy. One way to avoid the bothersome influence of public opinion was to do what our public servants did in June—revise the bill so its focus was on transportation while moving LMF funding to the budget, out of reach of those who might still oppose it. However, support for LMF would have been universal if the following hidden mandate had been removed, a suggestion made countless times and ignored by the committee. Here’s that requirement: “Hunting, fishing, trapping, and public access may not be prohibited on land acquired with bond proceeds, except to the extent of applicable state, local, or federal laws, rules, and regulations and except for working waterfront projects and farmland protection projects.” Island Institute Board of Trustees
Emily B. Lane, Chair Tom Tinsley Vice Chair Charles Owen Verrill, Jr. Secretary Douglas Henderson, Treasurer, Finance Chair Donna Wiegle, Programs Chair Kristin Howard, Philanthropy Chair Shey Conover, Governance Chair Michael P. Boyd, Clerk Sebastian Belle Shey Conover David Cousens Megan McGinnis Dayton Michael Felton Nathan Johnson Bryan Lewis Michael Sant Barbara Kinney Sweet Katherine Vogt Carol White John Bird (honorary)
Until recently, LMF has been widely covered by the media but most people haven’t heard of this hidden mandate. Except for occasional opinions pieces written by concerned Mainers, not a single newspaper has published the above requirement which stipulates that public money must be used to support the special interests of a select group while denying that treatment to everyone else. The hidden mandate is aptly named because it’s hard to find. In the most recent version, it was buried in the middle of nine pages of fine print. When LMF was moved to the state budget, the mandate was buried even deeper, on page 242. And if LMF had gone to bond, here’s the language voters would have seen on the ballot: “Do you favor a $40 million bond issue to invest in land conservation, water access, wildlife and fish habitat, outdoor recreation opportunities, including hunting and fishing, working farmlands and working waterfronts, to be matched by at least $40 million in private and public contributions?” Note that while hunting and fishing are mentioned, trapping is not, and there’s not a word about these three activities being permitted on LMF conserved land. A close reading of the mandate also reveals a linguistic juggling act: “Hunting, fishing, trapping may not be prohibited” suggests that they are prohibited now, whereas the only time these activities are not permitted on conserved land is when they are inconsistent with the preservation of the land in question and the safety of those who use it, and this is done on a case-by-case basis by local property managers, not as blanket policy.
“May not be prohibited” is a back-door way of saying “must be allowed” even though they’re already allowed now. The result of all this manipulation is a new form of voter suppression. Because it’s no longer a bond, the decision to determine LMF’s fate has been taken from voters. The people’s traditional right to decide has been subverted, and LMF, which was never intended to provide preferential treatment for any special interests or to impose undemocratic mandates on everyone else, has made a simple walk in the woods a risky venture. Trapping must now be allowed on any land conserved with LMF funds. As you and your pet stroll along new LMF property, you’d better be careful because trappers—who are exempt from animal cruelty laws—are also not required to post warning signs or indicate where traps have been placed. And if your local land manager doesn’t like it, that’s too bad because traditional local control has been undermined by the hidden mandate. You may also have to dodge a bullet because hunting (including baiting and hounding) must be allowed as well. We have not only lost our right to decide, but we are also less safe on conserved land where the quiet pleasures of nature can be enjoyed free from gunshots and the cries of trapped animals. Don Loprieno is a published author and former manager of conserved properties for the Palisades Interstate Parks Commission in New York’s Hudson Valley. He lives in Bristol.
THE WORKING WATERFRONT
Published by the Island Institute, a non-profit organization that works to sustain Maine's island and coastal communities, and exchanges ideas and experiences to further the sustainability of communities here and elsewhere. All members of the Island Institute and residents of Maine island communities receive monthly mail delivery of The Working Waterfront. For home delivery: Join the Island Institute by calling our office at (207) 594-9209 E-mail us: membership@islandinstitute.org • Visit us online: giving.islandinstitute.org
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The Working Waterfront . November 2021
The Maine coast, 50 years ago
George Tice photographed waterfront towns in 1971
The Farnsworth Art Museum in Rockland is hosting a show through Nov. 1 that pairs the photographic work of George Tice and painter Andrew Wyeth.
Lobster buoys, freshly painted, dry in the sun in Stonington. A road in Edgecomb.
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www.workingwaterfront.com . November 2021
Vernon Woodward and James Polk of Jonesport. Bertram Peabody and his son dig for clams on Beals Island. Walt Anderson of Port Clyde.
A very custom, contemporary cape on Little Island Cove in Sullivan sits on an elevated site overlooking Frenchman Bay. On 1.9 acres, the setting has lovely gardens, and a sloping lawn to the beach. At low tide, Little Island is accessible for a little piece of Maine to enjoy with long views to the islands, mountains of Mt. Desert Island and beyond. With cathedral ceilings in the living room, kitchen and dining area, there is an open feel yet cozy areas around a woodstove in the living room and a beautiful, wood cook stove in the kitchen where people always concregate. The kitchen has custom cabinets, gas range, dishwasher and slate counter tops, with the dining area beyond the kitchen and a breakfast room with views of the bay. Two bedrooms on the first floor with a full totally renovated bathroom, laundry room and entry from the two-car garage with a stairway to the second floor bedrooms and full bath. There is a beautiful guest house for guest use or a rental with an incredible income and repeat business year after year. This is a unique property, halfway between both sections of Acadia National Park on Mt. Desert Island and the Schoodic Peninsula. $895,000
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To support a Maine artist and shop online, visit TheArchipelago.net
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The Working Waterfront . November 2021
A place to indulge your inner hermit
Hermit Island Campground in Phippsburg offers oceanfront sites PHOTO ESSAY BY MICHELE STAPLETON
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ermit Island Campground was established in 1952 and remains largely unchanged—rustic, slow-paced, and in tune with the natural environment, with 271 sites across the southern end of the island. The campground hosts campers with tents, pop-up trailers (up to 25-feet long), and truck campers, but no RVs or hard-topped campers.
www.workingwaterfront.com . November 2021
Campground manager Donny Wallace helps campers with purchases at the camp store. He’s worked at Hermit Island for 31 years.
Andy Hahn, a science teacher from the Waldorf School of Saratoga Springs, N.Y., examines specimens gathered at Head Beach just outside the campgrounds. A group of students from several Waldorf schools had traveled to Hermit Island for a field trip.
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The Working Waterfront . November 2021
Our Island Communities A Ted talk—
Isle au Haut’s long-time minister Ted Hoskins on island history What follows is an excerpt from an interview conducted, recorded, and transcribed by Kris CarlsonLewis of Ted Hoskins at the Isle au Haut Parsonage on Aug. 22, 2012. It first appeared in a recent issue of the Isle au Haut Historical Society’s newsletter. It has been edited for length and clarity.
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ed Hoskins preached on Isle au Haut from 1961 through 2013, a period that also included a stint with the Maine Seacoast Mission, from about 1995. He reduced his preaching after 2012, taking the pulpit for the occasional Sunday. His last sermon on the island was preached in 2014. KRIS: When did you see the most significant changes on Isle au Haut over the years? Was it when the electricity came? Or telephone?
TED: Electricity was important, telephones were important. We had quite a lot of discussion about telephones and about electricity. The summer people were worried it was going to spoil the island ‘cause you’d have these lines all over. They didn’t want to see the lines. So, a lot of them paid extra to go underground to their houses and that kind of stuff. We all had to chip in a certain amount of money to get on the power grid. Pat Tully and young Stan Dodge were key people in that. KRIS: I can remember coming up in the early ’80s and the generator would go on in the evening for a few hours. There was no phone at that time, just the ship to shore. TED: Well, we didn’t even have that. Somebody from Westport, Conn. would call up about this crisis or something. It would come up to Buster [Aldrich]. Buster would maybe write it down and maybe bring it out the next day. Maybe find me and maybe not. And then of course, I couldn’t answer until I went back some time. And you knew darn good and well that by the time you got onto the mainland to make a call back, whatever the crisis was, was handled one way or the other. That was a pretty good insulation. And then telephones came. So, I think telephones and electricity were two major changes. Of course, after the war was a major change. People started coming back in greater numbers and then the boat company began to service people more. Stan used to run the mail boat, 25 cents you could go over. I remember when we were first here, we wouldn’t go over more than once a month to the mainland. When we first came there was a toll on the Deer Isle-Sedgewick bridge. There was nothing in Stonington. You’d go over and there was a barbershop and there was Webb’s store. There was a garage there. And the blacksmith shops, I remember going to the blacksmith shops. There were two blacksmiths in town. KRIS: Some of the occupations that were so big over the years you don’t really see much anymore.
TED: Nope, not much blacksmith work. Not that kind of blacksmith work. They had to work on drags and stuff like that, you know for scallops. KRIS: When did you first have a car out here? TED: Miss Lizzie or Miss Ava [Rich] had an old car and would let Dad borrow it. It was an old Model A or a Model T, one or the other. Maybe once a month we might go down to the pond. The end of the pond wasn’t as it is now that everyone swims down there. It was just junk then. We used to swim up at the head of the pond down below the farm. It was all mucky but nonetheless, that’s where we went. A bunch of us kids decided to bring sand down and build a beach down there. So after church, we’d get
Of course, after the war was a major change. People started coming back in greater numbers and then the boat company began…
A painting of Ted Hoskins that hangs in the island church. PHOTO: COURTESY KRIS CARLSON-LEWIS
the town truck and go over to the sand pit or gravel pit and shovel a truck full of sand and take it down and put it down. We did that time after time until we got all that sand down at the foot of the pond down there. That’s where that came from. KRIS: That’s why there’s a beach there? TED: We lugged that all. KRIS: So, I know when you retired from the Westport, Conn. church, you went with the Seacoast Mission. How did you find that change? Was that a positive because you really liked it along the coast? TED: Oh, yeah! I knew a lot of the guys and I had done enough fishing here so I could talk to the guys on other islands. I enjoyed being on the boat. I did that for about a decade, I guess. It was good. I loved it. Very, very good.
Ted Hoskins, who served for many years as minister on Isle au Haut, supervises children ringing the church bell. PHOTO: COURTESY PAUL LEWIS
www.workingwaterfront.com . November 2021
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A church history
Union Congregational Church plays role in island life THE UNION CONGREGATIONAL Church on Isle au Haut was founded in 1857 and built by island residents on a hill overlooking the village and thoroughfare. The Rev. Joshua Eaton was the first pastor, and there were seven original members, five of them named Turner. From its early years the church was often served by visiting ministers, missionaries, and seminarians preaching for a few weeks at a time—35 of them in 43 years. In 1907, the minister was a woman ordained in Nebraska. The Rev. Frank Snell served as both minister and physician from 1914 until his death in 1926. During his tenure, a new house was built to serve as both parsonage and doctor’s office. The church was incorporated in 1931. Summer residents arrived by the 1880s as the local economy began to decline and land ownership shifted substantially. In 1943, about half of the Island became part of Acadia National Park. After World War II, the church became seasonal, hosting ministers who were usually on vacation from their regular parishes. Ever since then, the Maine Seacoast Missionary Society has provided services outside of the summer season. In 1941 the Reverend Fred Hoskins became the summer minister, arriving for the first time with his family, including his eight-year-old son Ted. Fred Hoskins returned to preach for
four or five years, and his family made it their permanent vacation home. After his son Ted Hoskins became the senior minister of a church in Connecticut in 1961, he too began preaching at Isle au Haut, gradually negotiating a more extended leave in order to serve as the Island’s resident summer minister. A year after his retirement in 1994, he became minister of the outer islands on the Sunbeam, the mission boat of the Maine Seacoast Mission. Throughout his career he continued his role at the Isle au Haut church until his retirement in 2013. During the 1970s, the church led an effort to revive the year-round community and started a fund which facilitated bringing electricity to the island in 1971. This fund also made microloans, supported the island store, and sent local children to camp. More recently, the church and the Seacoast Mission have co-sponsored a weekly series of free community suppers at The Island Store. A few years ago, a gift of land was made to the church which included a large part of the shore of Long Pond. Part of this property has been transferred to the town as a public beach. In collaboration with Acadia National Park and the Isle au Haut Land Conservation Trust, an easement has been placed on the remainder of the property. The sanctuary building has been restored within the past decade. Visitors are welcome throughout the summer.
The Union Congregational Church as seen from the water.
PHOTO: TOM GROENING
UMaine launches ‘blue economy’ program Graduate program to be sited at Darling center
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The grant will support an MBA graduate assistant, he Maine Business School at the University of Maine will launch a graduate education who will collaborate with DMC director Heather and collaborative research initiative to Leslie, as well as MBA student interns and a faculty support Maine’s marine economy with the help of a externship. “The UMaine Blue Economy Program builds on $50,000 award from the William Procter Scientific more than 55 years of creative collaboration at the Innovation Fund. Together with UMaine’s Darling Marine Center, Darling Marine Center among scientists, entreprethe Maine Business School is launching the UMaine neurs, and other professionals,” said Leslie. “It will enable us to deepen partnerBlue Economy Program where ships among science and busistudents, faculty, and industry ness experts while enhancing and community partners will UMaine’s contributions to fishwork together to conduct eries, aquaculture, and other research, product development, and commercialization related to More than 10,000 people working waterfront-dependent industries of the state.” Maine’s marine economy. are directly engaged in More than 10,000 people are “UMaine is proud to launch the harvest and farming directly engaged in the harvest this pilot program that reflects of seafood in Maine… and farming of seafood in Maine, William Procter’s legacy as a according to information from businessman, entrepreneur, and the Maine Department of Marine scientist,” said Maine Business Resources. Hundreds of new jobs School dean Faye Gilbert. related to aquaculture alone are UMaine MBA students and faculty will work in collaboration with researchers projected to result in the next decade due to the at the Darling Marine Center on the Damariscotta growth of established farms and new development. Anticipated growth in the ocean renewable energy River in Walpole to gain the experience and skills to sector and emerging development trends in Maine contribute to this rapidly developing sector.
coastal counties suggest the workforce, technical, and scientific needs to sustain the blue economy will continue to grow. “The UMaine Blue Economy Program pilot is a leading example of how UMaine’s MBA curriculum is quickly moving toward cross-disciplinary, experiential learning and market-driven programs to drive real change in Maine’s economy and beyond,” says Norm O’Reilly, recently appointed dean of the UMaine Graduate School of Business. “This is the type of program that is well aligned with the mission of the University of Maine Graduate & Professional Center; we see aquaculture in particular as an area of high interest in the future.” The Maine MBA has seen a 300 percent increase in enrollment since 2016, is accredited by AACSB, and ranked by U.S. News and World Report, Fortune and CEO Magazine. Founded in 1965, the Darling Marine Center’s mission is to connect people to the ocean. The Center’s researchers, staff, and students work alongside fishermen, aquaculture entrepreneurs, marine industry professionals, and other members of the community in Maine and around the world. More information is available at dmc.umaine.edu.
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The Working Waterfront . November 2021
www.workingwaterfront.com . April 2020
RanBeRRy R epoRt Lobstermen’s Associationcsues over whale rules MLA claims feds relied on poormeeting, information painting lines, eating Town doughnuts, and throwing rocks
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he Maine Lobstermen’s Association filed a lawsuit in early September against the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) and the Secretary of Commerce in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia By Barbarathe Fernald challenging federal government’s ten‐year whale protection plan. The suit ACTIVITY on the the end claims the plan willislands, all but ateliminate of February and into March, is liketoa the Maine lobster fishery yet still fail mirror image of the action at the end save endangered right whales. ofThe August into September. Just as the MLA’s complaint asserts that summer residents of the Cranberry NMFS’s new biological opinion, Isles endintheir rightbecause before released May,vacations is unlawful fall, many year-round residents end NMFS acted arbitrarily by, among their winter breaks just before the other reasons, failing to rely on the spring equinox. best scientific information and failing time to to work and to It’s account forgettheback positive impact reconnect. of conservation measures already Our annual town lobster meeting takes adopted by the Maine fishery. place on the second Saturday in March. The complaint also seeks relief For selectmen townrule employees, from the new and whale arising winter has been anything but a vacafrom flaws in the biological opinion tion. They have been working steadily, released in September. gathering information write the “NMFS got it wrong,”tosaid Patrice warrant for town meeting. It’s the time McCarron, executive director of the of yearLobstermen’s we come together as a town to Maine Association. decide on projects and spending and “The science does not support how much money is to be raised by the agency’s plan. Using worst case property taxes. scenarios that hold Maine lobstermen Discussion of right the school accountable for whale budget deaths alone can take well over an hour. The islands take turns hosting the meeting and the luncheon. This year, town
occurring in Canada won’t help protect right whales, but it will decimate Maine’s lobster industry,” she said The MLA claims that NMFS has persistently ignored science and meeting will take place onMLA Islesford. evidence submitted by the and What’s for lunch? Homemade pizzas, other experts that would have enabled salads, andtodesserts. Life gets busier the agency correct its mistakes. asThe weMLA volunteer prepare the pointstoto help the success of the first community meal of the season. Maine lobster fishery’s existing right Town meeting is measures a great opportuwhale conservation implenity to hear about winter mented over the last 20 from years.friends There and never neighbors. was right your trip to has been “How a known whale ...?” “Who knew grand-parenting was serious injury or mortality associated so exhausting or thatgear. thereMoreover, were so with Maine lobster many cold germs involved?” “You did there has not been a single known all that painting?” These with sameMaine quesright whale entanglement tions could be asked in September lobster gear in almost two decades. at a school meeting in alobstermen large sub“NMFSboard is targeting Maine urb. (Preferably not during meetbecause it is easy. We’re a the bunch of ing while someone else has the floor!) small, owner-operated businesses,” said In January February, Bruce and Kristan Porter,and president of the MLA. I “Taking got to spend a lot of time with our on Canada and the shipping grandchildren in Southern Maine. industry is hard. Maine lobstermen Visiting them goal of understand thewas needthe to main protect right most of our winter travel. We considwhales, but if NMFS really wants to eredright trying to paint kitchen, but save whales, theyour should be going we kept catching odd coughing virusafter the things we know are actually es and them experienced moredismantling down time killing rather than than we wanted, so we never our fishery piece by piece.” got to it. Maybe I’ll paint itasserts in May, when I can The complaint that “NMFS’s have the windows open. mandate ignores the reality that the Bruce saw more than enough paint, anyway, this winter. During his “time off” he painted 600 buoys (white and
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Maine lobster fishery already has an very little risk to North Atlantic right extremely low incidence of interactions whales,” MLA argues. NMFS’s ten‐year whale plan is with right whales due, in part, to a suite of mitigation measures that have been already forcing unnecessary burdens implemented for many years. Reducing on the fleet and will ultimately result bright red with black stripe) and, of purple rope to the end of the in devastating economic hardship its already low aimpact by anotherlike 98 piece every other lobster fisherman Maine buoy line orfleet toggle, all attachments to Maine’s of but 4,800 individually percent is not possible withoutindriving be and madeoperated with a splice or a fishing tuck. this winter, he read about, talked owned lobster most of Maine’s harvesters out ofabout, busi- must I know it’s a stretch to compare foland experimented with purple paint. vessels and the tens of thousands ness permanently.” lowing Maine whale rope requireThe latest whale regulations require The federal plan disregards “criti- of jobs they support, all of which with a to plein air workshop, all Maine lobsternew fishermen to use new ments are essential Maine’s economybut as cally important scientific informarkings on the ropes they attach to a person could return home eiof the mation about right whale migration well as irreplaceable aspectsfrom lobster traps. howMaine close ther say that been paintstate’sand coastal and they’d maritime heritage, patterns [that]Depending shows thatonthe in theirtospare time. If Bruce were to shorefishery they fish, they will have add ing according the MLA. lobster will continue totopose 2-4 purple marks on each buoy line. writing an essay on how he spent his On warps that are 100-feet or less there winter vacation, painting would be a must be one 12-inch purple mark with- part of it. Another part would be the in a few fathoms of the trap and a 36- description I heard him tell his brother inch purple mark within 2 fathoms of Mark about walking to get doughnuts, the buoy. If the warp is longer that 100 in February, with our son Robin, and oursave grandchildren Henry and Cora. I feet, the requirement for a 12-inch “If NMFSis really wants to right whales, purple mark near the trap, a second 12- was away with friends in Portland, and they should going after the Stephanie wasthings away with friends in inch purple mark halfway to thebe buoy, and a 36-inch we markknow near the Florida. Father and son were in charge. are buoy. actually killing them…” “Yeah, we got doughnuts at The Bruce figures he will be putting 1,500 to 1,800 markings on his rope in all; two Cookie Jar and then walked to the for a picnic and to throw rocks.” to three weeks of extra work if—Kristan he does beach Porter Eating homemade donuts and it without hiring help. A number of fishermen are applying paint to their ropes throwing rocks at the beach—if that by resting them in 3-foot long gutters isn’t a mirror image of many childmade from lengthwise-halved PVC pipe. hood summers on Islesford, I don’t Bruce’s first attempt was with spray paint know what is. q but he soon moved on to the more efficient brush and latex paint. Barbara Fernald lives on Islesford (Little Some fishermen will add a 3-foot Cranberry Island) with her husband Bruce.
As winter winds down, islanders mix prep work and gatherings
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metabolic processes and carbon dynamics in West Greenland lakes respond to rapid climate change and earlier ice-out. Ice-out in West Greenland lakes has advanced six days since 1993, but variability in ice-out timing is substantial; in 2018, ice-out was in mid-June and in 2019, it was at the end of May. Hazuková is analyzing lake temperature data that Saros and others collected over the past 20 years from Kangerlussuaq lakes. She seeks to understand how ice-out dynamics affect open water processes, how temperatures change both in the surface and bottom waters and, ultimately, the biological impacts of these thermal changes. Together, the studies will provide important information about the cascading effects of climate warming on lake carbon and ecosystem dynamics. Dramatic changes in the Arctic—which is warming at about twice the rate as the rest of the planet—have been documented. And the drier and warmer conditions that exist now in West Greenland are indicative of likely future conditions in many Arctic regions, says Hazuková. That will have implications for carbon cycling, biological communities and, in some areas, could exacerbate wildfire frequency and intensity. The Arctic climate also impacts lower latitudes. Changing sea ice dynamics in the Arctic Ocean and increasing ice melt from the Greenland ice sheet are connected with unusual weather patterns in Maine and elsewhere. Hazuková became interested in water and phytoplankton growing up in the Czech Republic. There aren’t many natural lakes in the landlocked country, but there are numerous ponds. While earning her undergraduate degree at the University of South Bohemia, she investigated diversity patterns and seasonal shifts of algal communities in those shallow fish ponds.
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The Working Waterfront . November 2021
Saltwater Cure
Challenges with a purpose is island life Life here comes with trade-offs, but always worth it By Courtney Naliboff A NEWCOMER TO the island, upon hearing about some of the inconveniences and stressors of island life, asked me, in all seriousness, “So why do you stay?” There are times when I ask myself the same question. Like on a dark, rolling December ferry ride, shivering in my car (because we’re not allowed to run the engine anymore), trying to maintain my composure and also wait to use the bathroom until we’re past the Monument and the waves calm down. Or when the mail doesn’t come because the boat didn’t go and the Penobscot Island Air planes couldn’t fly. Or when I leave the grocery store singing “Yes, we have no bananas,” because yes, they had no bananas. The challenges of island life are many, it’s true. But years ago, when I moved here from Boston, I determined that the challenges here feel worthier than the challenges I experienced in the city. There, I might stand in a pile of slush waiting for a bus for 20 minutes. Maybe I would be late to work because
Sometimes those challenges can I was standing in Downtown Crossing waiting interminably for an Orange lead to major undertakings, like Line train, unable to call my boss from the bakery I used to operate in the subterranean gloom despite having the summer, or becoming a CPR a cell phone. Or perhaps I’d find myself instructor to improve access to the scrounging to pay my rent, dispropor- classes for island EMS. Sometimes the tionately high for a box office assistant/ challenges lead to avoidance behavior, like the winter when I grad student. managed to never take Don’t mistake me, the last boat home. I enjoy a challenge. More often than not, I I like a heavy lift, gain something from whether it’s bringing a working through them. one-act play with all its That sense of That sense of chalcostumes and scenery lenge with a purpose from the island to a challenge with is something we try to mainland host school a purpose is instill in students as for a competition, or well. I got to chaperone stacking several cords something we the wilderness expediof wood every fall. I try to instill in tion this fall, and spent just like my challenges three nights camping, to come with a sense of students… hiking, and paddling purpose. with the high school. I need to stack the The paddle was wood so we can heat the long, with two difficult house in the winter. I portages. The hike was need to go on the boat in wet—the entire day of December to see family. I need to be a more creative cook when the hike, in fact, was completely soggy. But everyone survived. I can’t find what I need at the store.
We cooked and ate good food, even in the rain. We saw beautiful waterfalls and stunning views of Katahdin. We supported each other with Band-Aids and Ace wraps and Ibuprofen as needed. We set up camp and broke down camp and made it back to school and then set up everything again to attempt to dry it out and get rid of the sand and mud coating everything. Challenging, yes. But also essential. This August marked the end of year 16 on North Haven, and now we’re into year 17. I’ve lived here for longer than I’ve lived anywhere in my life. The challenges here haven’t gone away, but they’re part of the fabric of our lives now. And while they sometimes seem grueling, they still feel worth it. Courtney Naliboff parents, teaches, and plays music on North Haven.
Journal of an Island Kitchen
In praise of the amazing bean Five varieties tested in island garden By Sandy Oliver EACH YEAR, drying beans ripen in the garden to provide a winter’s worth of baked beans, bean soup, or even refried beans. Traditional Maine varieties like Marfax, Tiger’s Eye, and Jacobs Cattle join Back Coco, Pintos, and Silver Cloud Cannellini. Once dried enough in the barn that the pods snap open, I haul them into the kitchen wrapped in an old sheet and walk over them to break open as many of the pods as I can, then shake the freed beans into a pan that I take outdoors to winnow free of broken pod and dust. I am obsessive enough, however, about the beans to sift through the remaining pods to collect the random bean not shaken out of its pod. In the process, sometimes carried out in the living room while watching TV, occasionally a bean will scurry under the table, behind the woodstove, or into the couch cushions. When I clean, I find the beans and put them in my pocket, then just before laundry discover them again, and put them in a little jar on the kitchen windowsill to sort later into their storage containers.
Ridiculous. I pondered why I chose they would produce if I grew them. to be so fussy about it especially since In order to find out, I planted them the rescue operation conserved so few in their own row, separate from all the other beans I grow so that I could beans. Last year, there were five. One bean is awesome. Actually, one watch their progress. I started with a Tiger’s Eye, a flat oval golden bean seed of anything is awesome. This tiny object contains both with a mahogany swirl; two Kenearlys, information and wisdom, and now a miniature yellow eye; Marfax, a smallish round pea bean; having been grown in my and a pinto or perhaps a particular garden, the seed Taylor Horticultural which adds slight bits of local is a shell bean unless you experience to its basic text about how to make a green This tiny object let it ripen. The Marfax didn’t sprout, roots, leaves, bloscontains both produce much. In fact, soms, fruits, and another our dry bean producgeneration of seed. It holds information instructions for the placing and wisdom… tion this summer seemed a bit behind the curve, of leaves and making the period. Still my five beans color and shape of flowers, produced half a cup which how to orient itself to the when soaked and cooked sun, and even sometimes how to resist disease, pests, and how would be plenty for a hearty pot of soup cooked with a ham bone, onion, and heal when a part is broken Tossing a seed is like heaving out an some celery to serve two or three of us. encyclopedia. It’s just that a bean is larger, Of course, I could have just vacuumed colorful, and rattles and skips, and, up that meal, composted it, or put it unlike a tiny carrot seed, asserts itself in through the wash in my jeans pocket. Instead, the bean blossoms adorned my purview. So I scoop them up. Last fall, I held the five beans in my one corner of my garden, and the leaves palm and wondered how much food nodded in breezes. I watched as pods
formed, grew, dried, toughened, and beans rattled inside them. I gathered them up as carefully as I could, shelled them out, and reserved their contents. I haven’t decided if I will eat them or save to plant them next summer. I have a lot to learn about seed saving, one of humankind’s most valuable skills. When I finally give it a try, I’ll learn a good deal more about being observant of a plant’s growth habits and productivity; learn to select carefully the seeds of the strongest and most prolific plants; and take greater care with seed storage. These five beans were randomly saved and probably didn’t benefit from a winter spent on the kitchen window sill subject to fluctuations in temperature and moisture. Plant them or make soup? I truly haven’t decided. Sandy Oliver is a food historian who gardens, cooks, and writes on Islesboro.
www.workingwaterfront.com . November 2021
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Guest Column
Why melting permafrost matters to Maine UMaine researcher brings Maine perspective to Alaska By Seth Campbell AS I SIT WATCHING the moon rise above the Alaskan skyline and mighty Taku Glacier, I can’t help but wonder how many years into the future this great ice mass will remain. Recent research suggests up to 60 percent of Taku will be gone in the next century if our climate continues on its current warming trajectory. These are humbling numbers, given Taku reaches close to a mile deep and represents one of the thickest mountain glaciers on Earth. While I ponder, college students participating in the Juneau Icefield Research Program scurry around the rocks in front of me to capture different photos of the rising moon and setting sun over the surrounding terrain. I capture a few shots of these wide-eyed young adults standing in awe, speechless from the powerful scene. Of the 60 students, staff, and faculty I led this year to the icefield to conduct research, learn about polar systems, and ultimately disseminate their science knowledge back to their own communities, ten were from Maine. One of those was a young coastal Maine fisherman, Maine business owner, and engineering student. Three others were Earth and climate science students. One recently moved to the Downeast region and had a mixed interest in political science, science policy, and Earth sciences. Myself? I’m a climber, paddler, fisherman, hunter, trapper, glaciologist, and climate scientist. We all have different backgrounds but certainly have at least one similarity—we are all concerned about the future environment of Maine and beyond. I am a Mainer, born and raised, but have spent more than six of the past 20 years in the most remote places on Earth conducting research. Much of this time has occurred in the great white north of Alaska
to study how and why its glaciers and permafrost (or have much at stake. Protecting parts of the Arctic is ground that remains frozen throughout the year) are perhaps one of the most valuable expressions we as changing, and to translate those changes into other a society can do to assure a healthy local and global potential impacts. It turns out that what happens environment for generations to come. Despite never seeing the Arctic National Wildlife in the Arctic significantly impacts other regions of Refuge (Arctic Refuge) myself, it is one of the last Earth, including our own cherished state of Maine. For example, coastal Maine waters are warming great wilderness regions on Earth and a testament faster than nearly anyplace else on Earth. This is to our ability as humans over the last few decades to preserve our natural environment. caused, in part, by increased meltProtecting the Arctic Refuge as is not water from Greenland and other Arctic only preserves its wildlife, fisheries, and glaciers influencing ocean circulation intrinsic scenery; it also cancels the risk patterns. of further natural gas and oil developWe also face ocean acidification Before long, the ment, which is literally damaging our caused by increasing levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere being prime lobster or own Maine environment with every extracted drop. absorbed by ocean waters. Shellfish are other fisheries This concept should be one ideal particularly susceptible to this, given acidification makes it hard for them to habitat may shift that we all can get behind as Mainers, whether a conservative, liberal, grow a protective shell. to Canada… Republican, Independent, Democrat, In short, the drilling for and burning hiker, paddler, fisherman, or hunter. of fossil fuels directly causes continued Preserving our last great wildlands atmospheric warming, glacier melt, from destruction and exploitation must ocean warming, and ocean acidificabe a priority for us all. tion, putting Maine fisheries at risk. This For more information about why is one example of dozens that exemplify the risks to Maine’s livelihood, economy, and envi- the Arctic Refuge is at risk, check out the Natural Resource Council of Maine’s blogs. ronment if we continue to rely on fossil fuels. Our coastal economy won’t need to worry about stricter environmental policies or offshore wind Seth Campbell is an assistant professor in the Climate impacting their fishing sets because before long, the Change Institute and School of Earth & Climate prime lobster or other fisheries habitat may shift Sciences at the University of Maine. He is also the to Canada based on its current trajectory. Just ask Director of the Juneau Icefield Research Program, Massachusetts how its fisheries have changed over which is the longest operating polar research and the last few decades. training program in North America. This column first As Mainers, we must recognize and act on global appeared on the Natural Resources Council of Maine’s issues influencing our local environment because we website and reproduced with permission.
Letters to the Editor Capacity is a concern
When Ted was a teacher
Jumpy reader
To the editor: My wife and I have been members of The Island Institute for more than just a couple of years and regularly read articles in The Working Waterfront. I read Sara Miller‘s op-ed piece in the August issue, “Leaving gas vehicles in the rear view mirror,” with much interest. Looking at her credentials, I would not presume to challenge her insights nor the non-scientific (her words) forecast of sales of electric vehicles by suchand-such a year. Understandably, forecasts are rarely perfect and only time will tell. I was disappointed that not a single word was said as a reassurance regarding the capacity of the electric grid to support the demand for regularly recharging the batteries of EVs. If her non-scientific forecast proves close-to-accurate, there will be millions of electric vehicles by 2030, just nine years from now. How many vehicles is “40 percent of (just) Ford’s global sales?” All this would be occurring during a time when momentum to replace fossil fuel and nuclear power plants with fully renewable energy sources will be increasing. Renewable sources do not seem to be as dependable in producing electric power hour-afterhour, day in and day out, no matter the season. Have I missed something?
To the editor: The October issue reporting on the deserved recognition of Ted Ames with an honorary doctorate of sciences by Bowdoin College and subsequent biography of his career was lacking an extremely important aspect of his accomplishments. In the early 1970s, Ted was far and away the most impactful, respected, and influential educator at Mount Desert Island High School. His rapport with students was completely genuine which set him markedly apart from most of the faculty at that time. I graduated from the school in 1973. Ted was a positive influence on hundreds of students who have now gone through their adult lives knowing that being inclusive, empathetic, and unassuming were all traits Ted passed on to us and that we wanted to emulate. The creation of MDI High School 50 years ago was an experiment in regional consolidation bringing students together from all the MDI communities and islands; that experiment turned out to be a success because the students became friends long before the administration got its act together. In my opinion, Ted Ames has as much to do with the success of the school as anybody. Thanks Ted—your impact on Downeast Maine and our planet is immeasurable.
To the editor: I just wanted to let you know that I nearly jumped out of my skin when I opened the October issue and saw the spider picture (“Spider haven: aracnids of the Downeast coast,” by Dana Wilde), but I loved it! Fantastic article. I am so intrigued with spiders, even though they are creepy! We have a family of Wolf spiders in our garden, and attached is a picture of the head honcho~ My husband Lou and I enjoy your publication.
Larry Daigre Ste. Genevieve, Missouri
Guy E. Torrey Portland
Maureen Mathieu Westbrook
The Working Waterfront welcomes letters to the editor. They should be about 300 words and sent to editor Tom Groening at tgroening@ islandinstitute.org. Guest columns and other longer opinion submissions should be cleared first with the editor.
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The Working Waterfront . November 2021
Field Notes
Stronger when we show up for each other Building relationships across U.S. islands increases resilience By Suzanne MacDonald “ARE WE DOING HUGS?” she asked as she approached me with her eyes sparkling. It had been nearly four years since we had seen each other in person and now, here we were, on Rockland’s Main Street, trying to figure out how to greet each other in the new normal. Kim Gaffett was the long-time head of town government on Block Island, R.I. She was in the Midcoast earlier this fall visiting friends, and I was thrilled she had reached out to catch up over an outdoor lunch. While she had to take a ferry and car ride to get here, Kim is no stranger to Maine’s island communities. For more than a decade, she has worked with the Island Institute and our partners to learn how other islands were tackling the issues Block Island has been confronting: island energy systems, expanding broadband access, and managing tick-borne diseases, to name a few. We realized there was so much that Maine islanders could learn from Kim and Block Island. And not only was Kim willing to pass along what her community was doing, but she was ready to roll up her sleeves and help.
Through the Institute’s commitment to connect beyond Maine to help community leaders find answers, Kim participated in exchange trips, presented at conferences, and spent hours providing guidance on the phone and over email. She shared with us how Block Island was able to effectively use its voice in state processes when engaging with offshore wind developers. The nuts and bolts and practical lessons from Kim and her colleagues on Block Island have since been put into practice on islands throughout New England and have even been memorialized in renewable energy processes as far away as Hawaii. As we sat with her friends, talking about our past collaborations and the thorny issues of the day, Kim’s interest in people on our part of the coast was clear. She has always been ready to show up for us, just as Maine islanders and the Institute have found ways to show up for her. My thoughts traveled back to the evening before when I had spent several hours online, helping facilitate the biannual gathering of the Climate Strong Islands Network. This new national network is focused on building climate
resilience for U.S. islands by developing a federal policy framework and increasing information exchange between communities. Before the pandemic, we would have gathered in person, but now the powers of Zoom had connected us all from time zones deep into the Pacific all the way to the Caribbean. The event highlighted how some U.S. islands are responding to climate change: restoring mangrove forests in Puerto Rico after the devastation of hurricanes; indigenous-led climate monitoring on St. Paul Island, Alaska that is informing local and federal decisions on climate adaptation; and progress on ambitious targets for clean energy and economic diversification in Guam. The common theme was how policies made on the mainland often fail to capture the realities of the island experience. A decade from now, it’s my hope that we can look back and see that we have found success in our “last best chance” to address the climate crisis here at home and globally—and that we’ve done so in part by showing up for each other. By coming together to share what those on the front lines of climate change are learning, we will accelerate the pace at which communities
can adapt. By organizing ourselves in D.C., we can ensure that the voices of islanders in the U.S.—many of whom have been marginalized by systemic injustices—can be heard more powerfully and that policy can be designed in more equitable ways. At the Institute, we work to build meaningful relationships to find solutions to problems that often more than one community faces. I’m grateful to Kim for being part of that process. And to our new colleagues in the Climate Strong Islands Network, we look forward to showing up for you. To learn more about the Climate Strong Islands Network, please visit www.climatestrongislands.org. A case study on Block Island’s efforts with offshore wind can be found at https://www.islandinstitute.org/ii-solution/create-accessibelearning-opportunities/. Suzanne MacDonald is chief community development officer with the Island Institute, publisher of The Working Waterfront.
Fathoming
For Maine, here comes the sun Residential solar power can help state hit goals By Meghan Grabill MAINE’S CLIMATE GOALS are to decrease greenhouse gas emissions by 45 percent by 2030 and 80 percent by 2050. The residential sector accounts for the second-highest source of emissions in Maine (after transportation), making up almost 20 percent of the state’s carbon pollution. Solar power is one of many options for reducing emissions of our homes. Depending on the details, rooftop solar can break even around year eight—with federal tax credits—and can provide mostly free electricity for many years beyond. “Maine has seen substantial growth in solar at all scales as policy changes in the past few years opened up the market,” Ethan Tremblay, energy policy analyst with the Governor’s Energy Office reports. “In fact, we’re among the top ten fastest growing markets in the country, according to national industry rankings.” Solar panels are installed in a place that maximizes sun exposure, which on homes usually means south-facing rooftops. These panels absorb the sun’s energy to generate direct current, or DC electricity. An inverter then converts the energy from DC to alternating current, or
AC power because residential houses are wired for AC. Solar panel output is measured in wattage, with the listed wattage determined based on ideal conditions. With current technology, a single rooftop solar panel of roughly 5 feet by 3 feet produces between 250-400 watts, but this varies based on shading, orientation, location, time of year, and temperature. A single solar panel could potentially power a 15-cubic foot freezer, or 20-30 LED light bulbs. Many panels are needed to power an entire house, but many homes in Maine have only enough suitable roof area to cover part of their electricity needs. To get a rough idea of the number of panels necessary to meet household demand, I can use my household as an example. We consume about 9,000 kilowatt hours (kwh) each year. In Maine, it is expected that 1 kw (or 1,000 watts) of south-facing rooftop solar panels will produce 1,200 kwh per year. I’d therefore need a 7.5 kw solar array. Assuming each panel is rated for 375 watts, I would need 20 panels. If you are fortunate, like me, to have a south-facing roof with no architectural details and limited obstructions of the sun, like trees, there is a good chance you have more space than necessary to
produce more energy than you consume. There are also ground-mounted options if the roof space is inadequate. Currently, most residential solar installations send power to the main grid. Remaining connected to the grid allows you to have a steady electricity supply. Legislation for “net metering” allows residents to get credit on their energy bill for the solar power they send to the grid. Living here in Maine you may be thinking, “Great, I can keep my lights on when the grid goes out from a storm, since I’m generating my own electricity.” But wait, no. With standard residential solar installations that is not exactly accurate. For the safety of utility workers, all power distribution must be shut down during an outage, so even power generated on your rooftop will not be delivered to your home. If you’re looking for backup power, one option is to couple your solar generation with an energy storage system—a battery. This allows homeowners to store the energy they produce and remain connected to the grid with safety controls to disconnect during grid outages. There is also the completely off-grid option. When it is bright and sunny and the house is using lower amounts of power, the solar production can generate more than is used and put extra energy into
storage. At night, when it is cloudy, or during a high demand time, the house can call on the stored energy. The battery can also be used to store power from the grid. The biggest drawback is the cost. Solar and storage technology have recently improved greatly, but batteries are still expensive. Homeowner-based solar generation has many benefits. “Along with providing some of the most cost-effective electricity available, solar is central to making our communities resilient to the effects of climate change and creates good-paying clean energy jobs for Maine people,” says Tremblay. With so many positive benefits, it may be time to contact a solar installer to get a system for your house to help Maine reach its climate goals and save some money on your electric bill. I know I am considering it. Meghan Grabill is a senior community development officer with the Island Institute, publisher of The Working Waterfront. She leads the Institute’s community data team.
www.workingwaterfront.com . November 2021
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Cranberry Report
My own hand-made oatcake invention Inventing a recipe that satisfies a craving By Barbara Fernald In early July I was shopping on the mainland at a local health food store when a friend handed me a square orange and yellow cardboard box labeled Effie’s Handmade Oatcakes. “Have you ever had these? They’re really good!” Nope, but I bought a box, stashed it in my cupboard and forgot about it. Lately I’ve been yearning for those dense slightly sweet Carr’s Wheatmeal Biscuits, but do they even make them anymore? I haven’t seen them in the stores for a very long time. Imagine my delight when I finally opened the oatcakes and they had a taste and texture quite similar to the thick crackers I was craving. The oatcakes were even better. The next time I went off island I bought two boxes and proceeded to consume them with a speed I usually only associate with eating Girl Scout cookies. I was hooked! On my next trip off the island, I was unable to find my new favorite snack. That’s just the way of it these days. You never know how long you might be
waiting for a preferred item to come back on the shelves. When I realized that the interruption of my oatcake supply could be open-ended I starting looking online for a recipe. I’d been making sourdough crackers all summer long. They were labor intensive but fun to do so I liked the idea of trying to make my own oatcakes. Oatcakes have been a dietary staple in Scotland for centuries. They traveled to Canada with Scottish immigrants in the 18th century, so I narrowed my search to recipes from Nova Scotia because I felt a kind of maritime allegiance. Oatcakes are basically a shortbread made of oats, flour, butter, and sugar. I looked at one recipe and tweaked it with some suggestions from another recipe. I cut the sugar by a third and replaced a cup of white flour with whole wheat. This is what I came up with and I’m happy to say I nailed it on the first try! Nova Scotia Oatcakes 1 cup white flour 1 cup whole wheat flour 2/3 cup brown sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder 1/2 teaspoon salt 1 cup butter 1/2 cup cold water Stir together the flour, oats, brown sugar, baking powder, and salt. Cut butter into small pieces and rub into the dry mixture with fingertips until crumbly. Mix in water with a fork until a ball forms. Divide in half. On a floured surface roll out dough to 1/4-inch to 1/2-inch thickness. It helps to have a well-floured rolling pin. The dough can be sticky. (Mine were just under ½-inch thick.) At this point you can cut out squares or circles. I just neatened up the edges of the mass I’d rolled out and cut rectangles using a pizza cutter. My pieces weren’t uniform, but it was much faster. Grease a sheet pan or use parchment paper. Transfer cut shapes to the pan. They can be pretty close together, just not touching. Bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes. If they are lightly browned, remove from oven. Ta-da! At this point mine were not quite
done enough. I wanted a crisper oatcake, not chewy. So I turned each biscuit over and put them back in the oven for five more minutes. Oatcakes will keep on the counter for a week in an air-tight container and up to three months in the freezer. If you’ve never tried oatcakes, you might just want to grab a box of Effie’s when you see them. I had no idea what I had been missing. My favorite way to eat them is with a chunk of cheddar cheese on top. They go pretty well with dark chocolate, too. If you become besotted with them, as I did, this recipe will work to satisfy your oatcake needs and you’ll still have extras to share. Chances are you already have the ingredients on hand, so you don’t even have to leave the island! Barbara Fernald writes, lives, and bakes on Islesford (Little Cranberry Island).
Observer
The island approach to medicine Timing and distraction were key to care By Phil Crossman In 1954, crying and clinging to my Dad’s hand with my good arm, I was brought to Dr. Ralph Earle’s office. He walked quickly toward me but then turned and whispered to Dot, his receptionist. She got up, grabbed her hat and left. Then he walked me, still sobbing and frightened by the site of my broken radius sticking up under the skin, back to his desk, sat me down, took my arm in his two hands and began to stroke gently and speak soothingly. I settled down. The door opened. I turned my head. Dot came in. Dr. Earle suddenly jerked the broken halves in opposite directions and the bone into alignment. I turned to scream but didn’t have time because Dot put an ice cream cone in my hand. Twenty years later, after attending Johns Hopkins, Dartmouth Medical School, and completing his internal medicine residency, Dr. Gregory O’Keefe settled in to fill the loved and legendary shoes Dr. Earle left behind. Home births were the norm. As Nancy’s time drew nearer and after some attentive pre-natal attention at the Island Community Medical Center, she and Mark brought a hospital bed to their house up on Calderwood Neck, a
few miles from town, set it up in the Ann. Greg ventured that she had a living room and waited. Not many lot of meters to read and suggested year-rounders lived on the Neck but another distraction—that Nancy and one of the nearby few was Dr. O’Keefe, Mark come up to the house and join them for dinner. Thinking she was his wife, and three-year-old Matt. Nancy woke on Saturday seemingly maybe not communicating effectively, in labor and called Greg who assured she nonetheless agreed. Not long after she her that nurse Ann McFee, arrived, Nancy allowed as who worked part time how she was really uncomfor the electric company, fortable. Greg offered her would stop by after she’d Around 5 p.m., a comfortable couch to finished reading meters. stretch out on. As soon as Around noon, increasstill having she settled in, young Matt ingly uncomfortable and contractions, began coming, repeatedly, concerned because Ann still hadn’t shown up, she she called again from his own room with stuffed animals, covering called again. Greg assured asking about Nancy with them until, her that this was still early completely covered, he labor and asked if she’d like Ann. sat on a stool and told to join him and his family her she would have a girl for a row. Incredulous at named Flower Garden or the suggestion of such Sunshine. un-related activity, Nancy After supper Greg reported that he’d was nonetheless so comfortable with and confident in Greg and so eager heard from Ann, who’d finished her to think about something other than readings and would be along shortly. Nancy went back to the house, got into contractions that she agreed. After a pleasant few hours on the a hospital gown, lay down to watch TV water, he brought her home and and waited. Around 9 p.m. Greg and Ann assured her that Ann would be along arrived. A minute later, the sheriff shortly. Around 5 p.m., still having contrac- called, Greg having arranged for calls tions, she called again asking about to be forwarded, to ask if he could
come back to town and stitch up some Waldoboro clammers— a historically rambunctious and invasive indigenous population—who’d struck a ledge and cut themselves up pretty bad. Greg told them he was tending to a woman in labor and couldn’t come into town whereupon he was asked if the injured clammers could be brought to him. Characteristically hard pressed to say no, Greg agreed and, during respites between contractions, he stitched up four inebriated but appreciative clammers, earning intoxicated assurances of earthy rewards should he ever find himself in Waldoboro. Ultimately, a healthy Megan was born at sunrise and without incident. Dr. Greg saw that she and Mom were OK, started a load of laundry, and left the new family to begin a day’s work at the clinic. Dr. O’Keefe recently died, prompting these memories. Phil Crossman lives on Vinalhaven.
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The Working Waterfront . November 2021
Worker shortage impacting lobster fishery Trap manufacturer had to delay delivery of gear By Melissa Waterman
Y
ou see the signs everywhere: “Help Wanted” or “Hiring Now.” Businesses in every sector of Maine’s economy have found it difficult to hire the number and type of workers they need. The problem has become acute in the businesses that supply lobstermen with their traps and other equipment. “Sadly, we’ve been calling customers to ask if they could live without new traps,” said Stephen Brooks, co-owner of Brooks Trap Mill in Thomaston. “We told them they could get them later or next year. Many cancelled their orders. I’ve been in this business all my life and I have never experienced anything like this struggle to get workers.” The labor issue also is affecting marine businesses outside of Maine. Riverdale Mills, a wire mesh manufacturer in Northridge, Mass., currently is advertising for everything from a forklift driver to a welding machine operator to keep its three shifts in production. The company is even offering new hourly employees a $700 hiring bonus. “We’ve reached out to get workers back,” Brooks added, “but some have just disappeared. Our production level is half or less than half of what it was last year.” Maine’s Department of Labor established a “back to work” grant program which provided companies with funds to give bonuses to newly hired full-time and part-time workers. A full-time worker could receive $1,500 if he or she took a job and stopped receiving unemployment benefits for two months or more.
Holly Bowman works with polypropylene mesh on a trap at Brooks Trap Mill. FILE PHOTO: JULIA NEMY
By late July, 100 companies had applied for grants to entice approximately 300 workers to fill empty positions, according to the Department of Labor. Of course, much of the economic disruption is linked to the pandemic. “We stayed busy last year and were OK at the beginning of this year but things just kept getting worse,”
Brooks explained. “Most lobstermen place their orders at the end of the year for next year. We had the orders and everything all scheduled out but then we started losing people. And it just never stopped.” Many point to the extra $300 in federal unemployment benefits that began in December as the culprit in the current labor shortage. That amount,
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www.workingwaterfront.com . November 2021
The Brooks family, from left: Mark, Sally, Julie, and Stephen.
combined with state unemployment benefits, is thought to motivate people to remain unemployed because the total in benefits is greater than what they would receive once employed. Others see a more complex cause for the acute labor shortage. James Myall at the Maine Center for Economic Policy at the University of Maine noted in a recent paper that Maine has long had a shortage of workers. “Maine’s prime working-age population— 25-64-year-olds—peaked at just under 745,000 in 2006. Since then, that number has steadily declined to just over 703,000 in 2019,” Myall wrote. Those who lost their jobs may face new obstacles to getting back to work, among them childcare. According to the Maine Department of Health and
FILE PHOTO: JULIA NEMY
Human Services, approximately 100 childcare facilities closed during the pandemic, and the rest operated at reduced capacities. Brooks, like many other business owners, has a limited number of options available to entice employees. “We try to have competitive wages for our employees plus health benefits which are equivalent to $3 per hour. Then there are bonuses and vacation time and holidays. If we raised wages for some, then we would have to raise them for all to be fair. But we don’t know how long we could sustain that. What happens in the long term?” he said. Currently the company pays each worker who comes to work as scheduled all week an extra dollar per hour for that week.
The Department of Labor estimates that as of June, the state had 25,100 fewer jobs than before the pandemic began. Yet the labor participation rate in the state remains low. The labor participation rate is the percentage of the population that is either working or actively looking for work. In February 2020, that rate was 62.6 percent of the state’s population. In February of this year, that figure had dropped to 59.9 percent, rising to 60.2 percent by June. One of the reasons that the labor participation rate in the state is relatively low compared to other states is that so many in Maine’s population are over 65 years old. Older Maine residents are less likely than younger ones to be in the labor force. Brooks is not only concerned about finding workers, he also worries about the rising cost for the materials he uses in his business. “Everything we sell has increased in price at least once, sometimes up to five times. Literally everything in our traps costs more,” he said. A recent shipment of wire imported from overseas came with a whopping surprise: a $12,000 freight cost on top of the normal $5,000 fee. Some other containers which used to cost $5,000 for delivery are now $25,000 to $28,000 for freight. “It doesn’t matter where it comes from, whether its buoys out of Texas or wire from Italy,” Brooks said. “Our shipping costs are up to five times more than they were in the past, and some items aren’t even being shipped.” Maine ended the extended federal unemployment benefits on Sept. 6. For Brooks, getting through the rest of the year without losing more customers is his primary worry. “We’re going to hunker down and work through it. It is a scary time,” he said. This story first appeared in Landings, the publication of the Maine Lobstermen’s Alliance, and is reprinted by permission.
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The Working Waterfront . November 2021
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